Justin Wilcox hasn’t started really digging into his study of Illinois just yet, but the Cal head coach already has a pretty good idea of what he’ll see when he flips on video of his Redbox Bowl opponent.

“Those kids play hard and with great fundamentals,” Wilcox said at the bowl’s news conference Thursday. “You’ll see that with them, and that’s the type of team we want to be.”

When Cal and Illinois play at 1 p.m. Dec. 30 at Levi’s Stadium, it promises to be a matchup between teams guided by defensive-minded head coaches making strides toward revitalizing programs behind the nation’s most productive linebackers.

The Bears’ Evan Weaver, who was named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year this week, leads the country in total tackles (173) and solo tackles (95). He’s 20 shy of tying the NCAA’s season record set by Texas Tech’s Lawrence Flugence in 2002.

The closest player to Weaver’s total this season is Illinois linebacker Dele Harding, who has 147. Harding also has 13 tackles for a loss, three interceptions, three forced fumbles and two touchdowns.

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“That should be a lot of fun for purists, defensive football people, to watch this game,” Illinois head coach Lovie Smith said.

As Wilcox was becoming recognized as one of the brightest defensive minds in college football, he said he studied Smith’s schemes.

Smith has been to two Super Bowls, one as the defensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams in 2002 and one as the Chicago Bears’ head coach in 2006. He took over the Illinois program in 2016 while Wilcox was the defensive coordinator at fellow Big Ten team Wisconsin.

The Fighting Illini (6-6) haven’t finished a season at .500 or better since going 7-6 in 2011 and hadn’t qualified for the postseason since losing to Louisiana Tech in the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl.

Illinois had a four-game skid in September and October that dropped its record to 2-4. The Illini responded with a four-game winning streak that included upsetting then-No. 6 Wisconsin and winning at Michigan State.

“When you’re building a program, you have to go through adversity, and that was,” Smith said. “We had to really look ourselves in the mirror and decide what we wanted to do. I like how our guys handled that adversity. ... It kind of spring-boarded our program to a different place.”

Sound familiar?

Cal will be making consecutive postseason appearances for the first time since the program played in seven straight bowl games from 2003 through ’09.

The Bears opened the season with four straight wins that catapulted them to No. 15 in the Associated Press’ Top 25 poll, but they followed with a four-game skid that threatened bowl eligibility. Cal responded by winning three of its final four games, including beating Stanford to win the Axe for the first time since 2009.

Redbox Bowl

Who: Cal (7-5) vs. Illinois (6-6)

When: 1 p.m. Dec. 30

Where: Levi’s Stadium

TV/Radio:Channel: 2Channel: 40/810

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“Hardware is a result of doing things right and winning games,” Wilcox said. “We were able to get one piece of hardware this year that means a lot to our program, and it’d be great to get another.”

Briefly: Cal offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin, who was named head coach at Cal Poly this week, plans to remain with the Bears through the bowl game. ... Cal is considering practicing at City College of San Francisco during the bowl week to make travel easier to downtown events.

Rusty Simmons has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle as a reporter since 2002, when he moved to the Bay Area from Texas — via Washington, D.C., Seattle and Germany. He covered prep sports and then Cal football and basketball before assuming the Golden State Warriors beat in 2009. Along with regularly breaking news and putting creative spins on big-issue stories within the Cal athletics beat, Rusty spends his offseasons writing human-interest features on the Bay Area sports landscape.